ARRIVE - Analysis of Risk for Urban Migrants, Refugees, and IDPs in Vulnerable Environments

As global urbanization accelerates, cities across the Global South are increasingly at the intersection of multiple challenges, including the growing risk of climate-related disasters, inadequate housing, unplanned urban development and forced evictions. This convergence is reshaping demographic and spatial dynamics in ways that large metropolitan areas alone cannot absorb. A significant and growing share of migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons settle in small and secondary cities.

Combining desk research with expert interviews and participatory validation workshops, this study assessed the status quo, existing solutions and concrete recommendations for seven secondary cities in five countries: Buenavista and Tanay (Philippines), Peshawar and Haripur (Pakistan), Cali (Colombia), Makurdi (Nigeria) and Bouaké (Côte d'Ivoire). Across cities climate change functions primarily as a growing pressure intensifier rather than a standalone driver of mobility. Mobile populations frequently settle in informal, peri-urban or otherwise unregulated areas with elevated exposure to flooding, heat and other hazards, while insecure tenure, limited access to basic services and exclusion from formal labour markets compound their vulnerability. These risks are unevenly distributed across age, gender, disability and ethnicity, reinforcing existing inequalities within arrival communities. 

Despite substantial differences in national and local contexts, the seven case studies reveal recurring patterns. The conclusion drawn from these shared stories is that urban risk results from underinvestment in systems that is  exposed and put under strain by migration, rather than  being caused by mobile populations. For this reason, the recommendations included in the report are geared to the needs of both arrival and host communities, addressing the  pre-existing and underlying conditions of vulnerability.